Ionic Pro: Quiet, but doesn't circulate

I live in an urban arid region that has a nice ring of brown smog steadily covering the landscape, a mild allergy sufferer, and forced to reside with smokers, who still believe second hand smoke does nothing to non-smokers, so air quality is a fairly large concern to me. I have been using the various different air purifiers over the years, from HEPA filters to ionic air purifiers ever since they first came out on the market a few years back, starting with the Ionic Breeze from Sharper Image. I have to say that this model has many improvements over those models, but still has the same drawbacks. Currently, I have two units operating in my room.

I will start with some of the features.

Quiet Filtration
The unit does filter the air without producing any noise, as advertised. I cover up the LED lights that show which speed it is on, because I like to sleep in complete darkness (plus having lights on while you sleep increases your risks of becoming nearsighted) I cannot tell if the unit is on, unless I remove the post-its I have covering the LED's.

Unfortunately, they do not tell you that if the filter has not been cleaned in two or three days, it will make an irritating and quite loud sound as the current jumps from the wires to the plates.

When I clean the unit, I do get tons of gunk that I would rather not be in my lungs. It does seem to clean the air. Certainly not HEPA quality though. Says it can trap particles down to 1 micron in size. I love how the advertisements for some of the competitors say something like 99% effective for large particles. Okay... what is a large particle? A golf ball is a large particle and they are right, a golf ball won't go through the unit.

The unit leaves an odd smell if no air circulates - maybe the negative ions or maybe the o-zone byproduct. It can give you a headache and might not be the best thing for you (depending if it is the ozone).

Three-Speed Option
This model has three speeds. Since the unit has no fan (another so-called feature), it hardly circulates the air. Okay... breathe out of your mouth - that is the amount of air that comes out of the unit. The air hardly moves on the first two settings, but is moderate on the "high" setting. You might want to leave your ceiling fan on so that you have some air circulation. I leave it on the "high" setting all the time, esp. since it is completely quiet. The only time I have put it on any other setting is when I am about to go to sleep, the unit is noisy because it needs to be cleaned, and I am feeling lazy. Sometimes if you put it on a lower setting the noise (lightning cracking) will be reduced.

Clean Filter Light
In my opinion, this is completely useless. By the time this light comes on, you would have lost your mind and thrown away/destroyed the unit. Fortunately there is a simple solution: If the unit is too loud and it annoys you - clean it.

Easy to Clean
The plates are easy to clean. Turn it off, take the plates out, use a wet paper towel to wipe the plates, put it back in, and presto - done! It takes maybe 3 minutes, including the time to get the wet paper towel. It can be a little messy, but at least it is free.

It also has a new wire cleaner that you pull up a few times when you clean the blades. Supposably, you need to put the unit on its back to reinsert the plates. For me it is a hassle to wrangle the unit over and mess with the cord just to put the plates in. I hold up a little block they put in with one hand and put the plates in with the other. It does not seem to have had any effect. Still purifies fine. They might have gotten sued over some freak case or something. Just in case, I am not "recommending" that you do that as it might lead to bad things happening.

Low Energy Consumption
I have never actually checked with those "Kill-a-watt" power consumption devices to see if it consumes less power. I imagine that it does. To tell you the truth, I don't care. If I was fanatically concerned about my power bill, I would not use a air purifier at all. But I happen to care about my health and well-being more than my power bill, so if the purifier purifies...

Negative Ions
So this unit generates negative ions that are supposed to come in contact with airborne particles, attach to them, and sink to the ground, thus cleaning more air. This is fine. Unfortunately, this means your floor in front of your ionic air purifier will become dirtier than the surrounding floor as the particles drop. Also, the negative ions quickly dissipate in the air and lose their charge after only a few feet. So do not expect the negative ions to have wondrous results.

Also, the outside case is practically impossible to keep clean. Imagine trying to clean a vacuum cleaner with hundreds of little vents.

Another item that might interest you:
A small 10x10x1 filter that goes in your room air vents


All in all, it is a decent air purifier if you don't mind cleaning it every few days and do not mind keeping the ceiling fan on to circulate the air for it. A great alternative to those who hate the noise of conventional air purifiers.